


To dust or to gold

by Beleriandings



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Brother Feels, Gen, Post-Canon, Xerxes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 20:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5798659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After travelling separately for years after the Promised Day, the Elric brothers finally return to Xerxes, this time together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To dust or to gold

Al was not sure why he had awoken, and he was a little exasperated with himself for doing so. Tomorrow, they were to leave before dawn broke to carry on their journey to Xing, starting early so that they could rest at midday when the sun’s heat beat down upon them and heatstroke and dehydration threatened.

So he needed to sleep, he knew. But his mind was awake now, and he sighed, realising that going back to sleep might not be so easy. Al had crossed the desert several times in both directions, these last years. Yet each time, stopping in the ruins of Xerxes always set him thinking, a strange sort of melancholy coming over him at the sight of the crumbling stones, fragments of transmutation circles still discernible on some of them. And the desert sand, blowing over what had once been the streets where his ancestors had walked.

Or perhaps, he thought, shivering, his wakefulness was simply because of the cold. Ed had warned him the desert would be cold at night, that first time. On his first day past the Amestrian border Al had barely believed it, as the dry heat began to beat down on him in waves, drawing the moisture from his lungs, draining him. But not long had the sun set that first night, his skin was cold and he was shaking with it, unable to sleep. That had been only a matter of two years after he had gotten his body back, and sensation had still felt strong to him, filling up his consciousness instead of fading into the background as he was sure it was supposed to. Sometimes it was  _too_ strong, jarringly so.

Now though, he was more used to physicality again, and to the extremes of temperature in the desert. In fact, it was Ed he worried for most now, though he knew Ed had been here before, that he knew what to expect. 

Al drew his blanket and his coat more closely about himself, curling up onto his side to look over at his brother a little way off, sleeping spread-eagled on his back. He was glad to have Ed with him once more; for all the travelling they had done separately, Al to the east and Ed to the west, he had always missed him acutely, and he did not need Ed to say it to know that he felt the same.

In any case, Al was looking forward to showing Ed Xing as he knew it; from the grand Imperial palace with its brilliantly coloured tiles and elegant gardens, to the tiny, winding backstreets in country villages where he and May had gone in search of a wise old practitioner of alkahestry she had heard of, once. Of course, it had not all been research; they might also listen to a little boy play the reed flute in a doorway, or buy skewers of roasted meat from the woman with the smoky little oven under a canopy on the street corner. Or they might watch the basket-weavers at work, feeling the warm evening turn to night, a night filled with insects swarming about golden rush lights in the humid heat.

He wanted to show Ed all of that; their lives had been separate these last years, and that still felt odd to Al, wrong in a sense. So when Ling had invited them both as honoured guests to his wedding, Al had anticipated the journey nearly as much as their arrival at their destination.

Still, they had to get across the desert first. The crossing was always hard, and Al worried most about Ed; an automail leg was not well-suited for sand, no matter how much he trusted Winry’s work.

He frowned, looking back at Ed. Perhaps it was because he had watched his brother sleep so often, through so many long, silent nights. Perhaps it was because Ed was so still and quiet. Either way, it took Al longer than it should have to realise that Ed was in fact awake, gazing up at the clear sky above them, the great, blazing arc of stars that lit the night sky out here reflected in his open eyes.

Ed blinked once, and Al started, jarring his arm against a piece of fallen masonry. Ed turned his head to meet Al’s eyes. “Can’t sleep?”

“Not so much.”

“Me neither.”

They both fell silent for a moment, and after a little while had passed Al lay down on his back beside Ed, gazing too at the bright sky.

“They were astronomers, too” said Ed, suddenly. “As well as alchemists. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It’s true. The Xerxians had much more precise maps of the night sky than we do in Amestris even today.”

“I can understand why, out here” said Al. From where they lay, the night’s sky seemed like the whole world, a great dome above them. Or perhaps a great bowl below them; for a moment he had the dizzying impression that he could fall into it, falling forever into those stars. He shook his head to rid himself of the notion and the sense of vertigo it brought with it.

“It’s odd” said Ed, his voice strangely far away. “That now all the observatories are rubble, all the people are dead.” He stretched his arm upwards, as though reaching out to touch the stars. His hand was a mere silhouette, like a dark hole cut into some bright cloth. “But the stars they looked up at… they’re exactly the same.”

“That’s true.” Al hesitated for a moment. “They’re not all gone, though.”

“What?”

“The people. _We’re_ still here” he said, turning his head to the side to look at Ed, trying to judge the effect his words were having, remembering the stab of pain that had shot through Ed’s voice the last time he had spoken of this. “And we’re still looking up at the same stars. We’re the very last that’s left of this place, these people.”

Ed turned to meet his gaze, his face unreadable. The pale starlight seemed to draw the colour from his golden hair and golden eyes, but Al knew the colours well enough, only a scant shade paler than his own. “ _We_ are the very last Xerxians” he said, his words falling into the silence around them, a silence that stretched on and on.

“Yeah” said Ed slowly. “Yeah, I suppose so.” He smiled in wry amusement. “Imagine if Dad could see us now.”

Al laughed a little. “I don’t think he’d believe his eyes.” He hesitated. “I think he’d be glad though.”

Again, Ed didn’t answer for a long time, many expressions flitting across his face. Then he nodded. “I guess he would.”


End file.
